is a short piece of religious verse preserved in the Exeter Book. It purports to repeat the information provided to the narrator long ago by a wise man. The narrator intrudes little into the poem, seeming to exist only to allow the motif of the dispenser of wisdom to appear. Even this figure, however, plays only a minor rôle in the poem, appearing only briefly at the beginning and speaking fifteen lines of direct speech, around three quarters of the way through the poem.

is structured around a basic opposition of two examples of human conduct; on the one hand, the proud man, who “biþ feondes bearn / flæsce bifongen” (“is the devil's child, enwreathed in flesh”), and, on the other hand, the virtuous man (characterised as being God's child), who lives…

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Citation: Shaw, Philip A.. "Vainglory". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 March 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11675, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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